


Stuck

by janetcarter



Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, mention of suicide, some book spoilers but mostly focuses on tv characterizations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28375020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/pseuds/janetcarter
Summary: Lyra feels she doesn't deserve to miss Roger when his death was her own fault. Mary tries to help her see otherwise.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Mary Malone, Lyra Belacqua & Roger Parslow
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Stuck

**Author's Note:**

> For the Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt "Accidentally Hurt by a Friend." 
> 
> I haven't read the books so I stuck this in the TV tag, but it does use book spoilers regarding where Mary has gone.

Lyra and Roger were racing through the halls of Jordan, daemons shifting to follow through any obstacle in their path. Papers flew, adults shook their fists, and the two children could do no more than laugh. (But not too much, because laughing made it harder to run, and Lyra was determined to win.)

Their soles beat into the tiles until they leapt out the window (or stumbled, in Roger's case) and rooftop replaced the college flooring.

Lyra sped along. She had only looked back once or twice by the end, unable to see Roger in the shaky exhilaration framing her vision. So when she jumped down onto the grass in the designated spot, she declared herself the winner.

"Ha!" she shouted. "We did it, Pan!"

"Now we just wait for Roger," Pan said.

"To rub it in his face?"

"Well, I suppose you could do that!"

Lyra's chest rose and fell as she caught up to herself. She expected to hear the sounds of Roger's shoes running across the roofs, or Salcilia's encouragement even though they'd lost, but… all she heard was her own breathing.

"Where is he?" she asked Pan, brow furrowed. "Roger! ROGER!"

"Maybe we should go and look for him."

A pang of worry hit her. "Maybe he's just hiding. He knew he couldn't win, so he's gonna scare us once we look for him."

She scaled the wall using the grooves and gutters and pulled herself back atop the first-story roof. Going up was much harder than going down, especially after running herself ragged to win.

"ROGER!"

Then, she heard it, so faintly it was almost carried off by the wind: "Lyra!"

Lyra breathed a sigh of relief and followed the noise. After a few more sloped roofs, she finally was able to find Roger and Salcilia on one of the lower sections. Roger was lying down, clutching his leg.

"Roger!" Lyra slid down and, as she got closer, saw the gash on his knee. "What happened?"

"I fell," he admitted. Salcilia, weasel in form, nuzzled his ankle.

Lyra's feelings of superiority fizzled out, revealing something far less fun beneath. "I'm sorry, Roger. I should've paid more attention."

"Nah, it's not your fault." He winced. "Just not sure how we're gonna get back inside."

"There's a window up the way," she said and pointed. It was a temporary solution, anything to get rid of the heavy feeling in her chest. "Think you can make it?"

Roger looked worried. "I guess we won't know until we try."

"C'mon, it's not too steep." She helped him up, and they continued on. 

-

Lyra awoke in an unfamiliar bed staring at an unfamiliar thatched ceiling, and that was when her heart sunk. She noticed, as she peeled away the woven blanket, she was drenched in sweat.

"Pan," she whispered. He was still blinking himself awake, so she gently stroked his white fur. It wasn't uncommon to have dreams about Roger after… after everything. But she much preferred the sadder ones. It was worse waking up thinking all was well, that she was still at Jordan College and Roger would be bringing her breakfast and they'd skip lessons to go run about the halls and…

"Lyra?" Pan asked sadly. "Did you… Did you dream about them too?"

She nodded. There were tears in her eyes. "It was a good dream. I want to go back, Pan." Back before they'd lost him, before they'd lost so much else, too.

Pan buried his face in her palm. "Me too."

-

The sound of the mulefas' seedpod wheels were never far behind in this village, but the stream's babbling water blocked it out just enough to give Lyra something resembling quiet. She had come here to be alone; as though something as simple as eating breakfast with Will would spiral into her hurting him, too. Or maybe, she worried, it would be just another betrayal to the boy who could no longer eat at all.

Mary's reflection appeared beside her own, and she and Pan realized their sulking had come to an end.

"Lyra," Mary said in a voice Lyra didn't realize she'd missed until then, even though they'd reunited days prior. "How's your morning going?"

She hugged her knees tight. "Okay, I guess."

"Are you coming to breakfast?"

"I dunno," she mumbled into her knees. "I'm not hungry."

"Oh." Mary's reflection looked down to the spot beside her. "Mind if I sit?"

Lyra scooted aside and Mary plopped down, sitting cross-legged.

"So," said Mary, after refilling her wooden cup with water from the stream. "What's got you down, love?"

"That's a big question," Pan said quietly.

Lyra ran her thumb over his fur and sighed. "I told you about my friend Roger, back when we first met."

Mary nodded, expression somber once the meaning fully sank in. "You did. It must be hard to have lost someone so close to you."

Lyra nodded. Her heart felt all twisted, and when she blinked, she realized there were tears in her eyes. "I keep dreaming about him, and… I miss him so much." 

Mary shifted closer and placed a hand on Lyra's shoulder. It was meant to be comforting, but Lyra had a hard time letting herself feel it. "Do you wanna talk about the dream?"

Lyra shook her head. "It's just… I feel like I don't deserve to miss him. Because it was my… it was my fault." Her sentence crumbled at the end, breath growing shaky as her rippling reflection blurred.

"Oh, Lyra."

Before she knew it, she was sobbing against Mary's shoulder. She didn't realize until Mary's arms held her just how much she missed Ma Costa's hugs.

"You know," Mary said after a while. It was gentle, a near-whisper by Lyra's ear. "I lost someone too."

Lyra sniffled and pulled back enough to look at Mary's face. "You did?"

Mary nodded. She wiped Lyra's tears away with her fingertips. "When I was a nun, I… Some time after I'd left, someone I'd known took her own life."

Lyra's eyes widened. "I'm so sorry."

Mary gave a weak smile before tucking strands of hair behind Lyra's ear. "For a long time I thought if I'd only stayed I could've done something to keep her going." Tears glistened against Mary's eyes, blue like the stream. "But I've come to realize that… I couldn't've known that was going to happen. Even if I'd stayed, I wouldn't have been looking out for the signs. I've replayed all our interactions over and over in my head so many times, but… I didn't know, back then, and that's okay. It wasn't my fault, and whatever happened with your friend… it wasn't your fault, either."

Lyra thought she'd cried herself out, but she'd broken down once again. Hearing those words made something click. It was like a key she struggled to fully turn, but… it was in her hands. And just holding it undid so much of the knot in her chest she had no other way to react besides tears.

Asriel had been the one to kill Roger.

Lyra couldn't have known.

Maybe it was the same with everyone else she'd lost, everyone who put themselves into the line of fire to keep her safe. She'd never asked them to…

To die.

Mary's arms were around her once more, her embrace like a tight blanket of compassion Lyra had deprived herself of for so long. For a moment, she pretended she was hugging Lee.

"How do you deal with it?" Lyra asked through involuntary breaths. "Missing her?"

"That's something I'm still figuring out," Mary admitted, running her hand through Lyra's hair. "You can never replace someone like that. But you can fill your life with new things and people until it becomes a little less hard to get through the day."

She thought back to Will. He was probably waiting for her, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to look for him. "But… but isn't that still replacing them?"

"You know," Mary said, taking a deep breath. "It's not easy at first, living on when others can't. But hurting yourself won't change what's happened, and… I'm sure Roger would want you to be able to grieve."

_ Grieve.  _ Hadn't she done that? Or was the ache in her chest something entirely different? Grieving, she supposed, meant coming to terms with what had happened. And coming to terms meant moving on, and moving on meant forgetting the face of her best friend, of Lee, of everyone she'd lost.

It was easier to carry around the guilt, because guilt kept them alive.

She realized Mary was gently rocking her through her sobs. "It's okay, Lyra. I'm here."

Mary was here, but so many others weren't. It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair.

But Lyra knew, on some level she couldn't quite access, that Mary was right. There was no changing what had happened. She felt entirely shattered, even with Mary holding all her sharp little pieces together, and she suspected she would continue feeling that way for a long, long time.

But Mary was also right about something else, Lyra thought, remembering everything she had done with Will, everything she had dared  _ enjoy _ doing with him, in the days since the mountaintop:

She would go forward. 


End file.
